"Schools are a disaster zone, " declares the young narrator at the beginning of this documentary about public education in New York City during the Mayor Giuliani era. She then guides us through a two year fight waged by parents, students and teachers against budget cuts in the city school system. LESSONS FROM CLASS STRUGGLE explores the issues of racism in public education and tracks and assesses the process of students and others organizing to fight for change in their educational system.

Reviews

"Kathleen Foster has produced and directed a video that focuses on a real issue of public import… that the belief in justice and equality and resistance to their absence did not die with the movements of the 1960s."
- Nancy Bunch, Empire State College, SUNY

"A powerful film that forces all the basic issues about racial justice. Students and teachers speak with eloquence and urgency about realities they know first hand. No euphemisms. No evasions. No cliches. It has the ring of truth."
- Jonathan Kozol

"Excellent! This film comes at an important time. Our schools are in serious trouble… now we have segregation and no education. We haven't achieved much since Brown vs. Board of Education."
- Esmeralda Simmons, Medgar Evers Center for Law and Justice